


An Angel Watching Over Him

by Name_Pending



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Mary Ships It, Sam Ships It, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 12:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12770862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name_Pending/pseuds/Name_Pending
Summary: After a rough hunt, Mary realises that she was always right about an angel watching over Dean.





	An Angel Watching Over Him

By the time they got an incredibly drunken Dean Winchester into bed, the hunter had thrown up three times already.

Sam pretty much tossed his older brother into his beloved memory foam, shaking his head at him before stalking out of the room. He’d had a few beers himself, it was true, but he was only vaguely tipsy. Dean must have had five drinks for every one Sam had.

Admittedly the hunt they’d been on had gone badly. Two innocent girls dead and one lonely father left without his children - the one dead monster didn’t really make up for it. It had been a rough couple of days, and both men were glad to see the back of the backwater little town that had caused them so much trouble. Even with both Cas and Mary it had been tough.

Sam retired to his own room the second Dean was in his own bed, but their mother and best friend stayed behind. Mary stepped forward on instinct, pulling off Dean’s shoes and yanking the blanket out from under him so she could cover him with it.

Cas hovered in the doorway for a moment before quietly stating that he would get some water. Mary nodded briefly, taking a moment to appreciate how peaceful Dean looked when he was sleeping. The tense lines on his face were barely visible.

Dean turned over in his sleep, moving with heavy limbs that gave away how much alcohol he’d had, and one hand ended up curled beside his face. Mary’s heart leapt into her throat at the sight - that was exactly the way he’d slept when he was a baby. Just looking at him hurt; it made her miss her little boy so much.

Mary was stroking her fingers down her son’s face, wishing with no small amount of guilt that he was still her little four year old, when Castiel returned with a glass of water.

“I’ll leave this here for him” the angel said as he set it down on the table by the bed.

Dean snorted in his sleep and turned his face towards the angel, as if he could sense Castiel’s presence. The angel must have noticed, because he paused and looked down at the hunter’s sleeping face with a barely concealed fond smile.

Mary couldn’t be sure if she imagined it or not, but she thought that the little bit of tension that remained in Dean’s sleeping form drained away, as if the angel calmed her son just by being in the same room.

Cas seemed to notice it, too, as he perched hesitantly on the edge of the bed and placed one hand on Dean’s shoulder. The hunter made a soft noise at the touch and leaned into the contact.

Mary felt a spike of sudden, irrational jealousy. Dean hadn’t even reacted to her touch, but he calmed instantly at the angel’s touch.

It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed this, if she was being honest. A lot of the time Dean and Castiel seemed to be arguing about something or other, but it was obvious to everyone that their bond ran soul deep. She’d asked Sam about it once, and he had just smirked and said that the two shared a profound bond. Mary knew that that was a reference to something she didn’t understand, but got the point anyway.

Dean and the angel had a bond she didn’t understand. The angel unsettled her a little still, she had to admit, and she knew that it was really because of _what_ he was, not who. The idea that this strange creature she couldn’t really understand was so integral to her sons’ lives was a very odd one. Castiel and Sam were the best of friends, that much was clear, and he and Dean … well, Mary wasn’t sure exactly what they were.

She suspected it exceeded friendship, though. During this last hunt, she’d become nearly convinced of that.

Dean had been in a rage about the death of the second girl, to the point of throwing things around their motel room. Sam had hung back with Mary, clearly torn between stopping his brother and reassuring her that Dean just got like this sometimes. Her younger son had whispered that Dean tended to rampage a bit to get things out of his system, and Mary had listened to him and stayed out of Dean’s way.

Castiel had not. The angel had breezed past her and Sam and stepped right into Dean’s space, tearing the chair he’d been planning to hurl across the room from the hunter’s hands and telling him to stop. Dean had argued with him, but eventually the angel had calmed him down. The two had then gone to the bar for a drink, and Mary hadn’t missed the way Castiel kept one hand on Dean’s back as he guided him there.

Dean had done this a couple of times, Mary realised. He’d be worked up about something and the only person he would really reach out to was Castiel. She was almost certain that Dean didn’t even know he was doing it, but he definitely was.

Castiel had a calming effect on her son that she didn’t possess any longer, and she couldn’t deny that it bothered her. Despite their rocky start, Mary still loved her son very much, and she wanted to be that person who he could count on for comfort. She was his _mother_ , it was her job.

Except … she had come to realise that it wasn’t her place.

Dean had somebody else in his life now who fulfilled that role. She supposed that she should be glad of that - Dean was obviously lonely and she really was happy that he had somebody in his life who cared so much for him, someone besides his little brother.

She may not understand what Castiel was to Dean - and maybe he didn’t either - but she could at least appreciate the bond that ran so deeply between them.

Now, sitting there and watching the angel smile down at the sleeping hunter, Mary forced herself to pull back.

“I’m gonna head to bed” she said softly, confident that Dean was deep enough in sleep to not wake at her quiet voice. “Goodnight, Cas.”

“Goodnight, Mary.”

Between them Dean snuffled in his sleep, slightly disturbed by the noises, and Mary realised that he perhaps wasn’t as deeply asleep as she’d thought. On reflex, she reached out to stroke his hair.

“It’s okay, Dean” she whispered, preparing to say something that her baby hadn’t heard in a very long time. Mary’s eyes lifted and met Castiel’s, and she held the angel’s gaze as she spoke. “Angels are watching over you.”

Something flashed in the angel’s eyes, and Mary wondered if he knew the weight behind her words. She didn’t ask, though. Instead, she simply nodded at him and stood up to leave the room.

At the doorway, she turned and glanced back. If she hadn’t had such strong, ingrained hunter’s instincts, she might have actually gasped as she noticed that Dean’s hand had moved to the side a bit, as if he was reaching out for the angel.

As Mary pulled the door closed, she just managed to catch the moment when Castiel moved to take Dean’s hand, and she smiled.

She couldn’t pretend that it didn’t bother her that Dean found more comfort in the angel than he did in her, but in a way, it did make her happy. He had somebody, and that was what mattered. Even if that somebody was a supernatural creature.

Mary shut the door with a soft click and walked to her room, sighing with a mixture of sadness and contentment.

At the very least, she’d been right. Angels really were watching over her boys.

At least one was.


End file.
